Android Wear smartwatches come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but the Moto 360, despite being announced a long time ago and being available for over 9 months now, is still one of the better looking devices around. It was also the first smartwatch with a round screen, actually it was kind of controversial since it is shaped as a “flat-tire”, with a small space in the bottom making it not completely rounded, but its high-quality materials like its stainless steel body and minimalistic design is really hard to beat. Google recently starting updating some smartwatches to the latest version of its smartwatch platform, beginning with the LG G Watch Urbane, which is one of the latest smartwatches that has been released, but the update was delayed for the Moto 360 because the company was still working on improving the performance for that device.
The Android Wear 5.1.1 update will benefit the Moto 360 with the new Wi-Fi capabilities that make watches more independent from phones, as well as the rest of the features that are expected to be en route. The UI has been improved by adding more menus for Contacts, Apps and Control Menu that provide an easier navigation, also, swiping from the top will bring the Notification Settings menu, finally, gestures can now control these menus instead of swiping with the finger. Apps can now be always-on as they turn monochromatic after a certain period of time, helping save some battery. Emojis can be drawn on the screen and the system will transform the drawing to share them in messaging apps.
Now, owners of the Moto 360 can rejoice as Wayne Piekarski, Android Wear’s Senior Developer Advocate has communicated through his Google+ account that the update is ready for the smartwatch! Just like with every OTA update, it might be a while before all of the watches get updated, but users can manually check for it from the Settings menu. It wasn’t specified, but Motorola was probably working in improving the battery performance as the update seems to affect some devices, we’ll have to wait and see if this problem persists on this smartwatch.